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Bloggers hold amateur counter-terrorism simulation

Bloggers have held their own counter-terrorist simulation exercise, with a scenario including coordinated explosions in Australia and New Zealand, and all sorts of other things. They were having fun, but perhaps lacking a bit of realism about the way such events would have been handled.
Its a good idea, though.

The idea, as set out on Silent Running , was to ask “how would the blogosphere respond in an actual emergency? ….Would we fall to pieces? Would we be simply struck dumb? Would we urge massive lashing out in retaliation? Or would blogs become a useful resource of opinions, options, information, argument and debate?”

Not enough people seem to have taken part to give a realistic answer. But its a good question. One of the initial problem with major emergencies is that mobile phone nets overload; but data lines may not, and bloggers have a good record for passing out information, eg about casualties, local impacts, etc. Secondly, people read blogs and are influenced bv them. What if the terrorists themselves made use of this?

The blog “Silent Running” says about itself: “If you are offended by strong right wing views and bad language, you should probably sod off now and go hug a tree.” It seems to have half a dozen contributors but they all use pseudonyms – but, hey, guys, even the right wing has good ideas sometimes.

How long before the Department of Homeland Security funds something like this in the USA? Taking bets now.